AS WE constantly believe that street food and other consumables being sold along the streets are not safe and sanitary, and on the other hand, the food we buy even in the biggest chain of supermarkets and in groceries is healthy for our family, then I think we could all be wrong.
This must serve as a warning to my fellow moms to avoid buying food which are under promo like buy one take one, because it seems that this is done to get rid of spoiled meat and near expiry items. It was not the first time that I bought frozen meat from the supermarket, I even remember buying chicken parts also sold in buy one take one offer. However, after my eldest son suffered from diarrhea and dehydration which resulted from eating the spoiled pork from the supermarket, I swear that I will never ever buy frozen meat anymore.
Republic Act 10611, otherwise known as the Food Safety Act of 2013 provides that “the State shall protect consumers from trade malpractices and from substandard or hazardous products. Toward these ends, the State shall maintain a farm to fork food safety regulatory system that ensures a high level of food safety, promotes fair trade and advances the global competitiveness of Philippine foods and food products.”
Rule 5.2.5 states that the food business operator and even the regulatory agency shall take the necessary steps to be knowledgeable of the conditions under which food could become unsafe or injurious to health and also provide the right information to the consumer to aid them in avoiding specific health effects from a particular food or category of foods.
Furthermore, in all instances as their main products shall affect consumers, all food business operators shall be primarily responsible for ensuring safety of their food products and prepared according to standards, codes of practice and other control measures as prescribed by the FSRAs that prevent or minimize food safety hazards or reduce the hazards to acceptable levels.
With the numerous cases of food poisoning involving younger people and ready-to-eat food being sold outside the school premises in the past few weeks, everyone especially parents like me should be vigilant as regards the safety of the food we bring home to our family. Seeing my son suffer from pain which is intolerable for his very young age breaks my heart, but calls for us his parents to be strong and take the necessary precautions to prevent this incident from happening again. As much as possible, our children should be brought up in the way that they will always prefer the food that we prepared for them in the comfort of our own homes. Let us warn our children to avoid food which are not safe, and encourage them to always eat healthy and nutritious food.